Two Poems | Danielle McMahon

a widow's lovesong

honey oh my honey / here I am I pray / as I wrench my perfectly creased apron / knot in loving distress for you only you / here I am all hemmed and haunted / perched and waiting / oh honey my home is so awfully empty / I purse my weathered lips / I crane my weary habit and wait for my honey my darling honey / always / I am waiting on windswept porches / haunting the shining card shops / for you always you / in the crackling dark of tea-rooms / waiting for / oh how I am nearly a crone now / oh how I pray you come to me as I am getting along now / alone now / and my home so awfully empty / for my only son weaned away / honey oh honey only / I pray / come home to me as my comely heart is heaving with waiting / the tea-readers tell me / the wanton words / the worm in our perfect tragedy / my love for my honey oh my dear sweet honey so heavy / I alone in this house so empty so heavy / I pray I am sure I am here / I am here for my honey / waiting / for my love to sweep lightly upon my lonesome porch

Selling a Mirror on Craigslist

In a moment, you have become a wonky bird of paradise, preening angles for the perfect photo-sales-pitch, so you skew the mirror just enough to capture the precious baubles of your bookshelf in its reflection (ruffled-up bird that you are), & your paperbacks all lined up like clean jewels, like neat teeth, in your nicely catalogued nest—nevermind, really, this battered ancient mirror, frame heaving & ornate, its glass freckled in amber, like the disembodied hand in the corner of the photo, which happens to be your own.

Danielle McMahon reads the liner notes.